


Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

by Lirillith



Category: Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Post-Canon, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-13
Updated: 2014-02-13
Packaged: 2018-01-12 05:27:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1182454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lirillith/pseuds/Lirillith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Akane rebuilds herself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

Akane Owari was never big on thinking.

When Sonia talked about despair, she talked about politics and money and civilization. When Hinata talked about despair, he talked about how boring life was when you didn’t have anything to work for. It was complicated and hard to follow.

For Akane, despair was going hungry. A rumbling stomach, a refrigerator holding a six-pack of your stepmom’s light beer and some gross unidentified crumbs and spills, no money in any of the usual hiding places and three days till anybody got paid. No knowing when your next meal might show up or where it’d come from. There was no feeling in the world as strong or sharp or deep-down hopeless as that. 

The others worried about falling back in. They worried that they’d lose hope, or they’d despair over the same things that got them before.

Not Akane. She _knew_ that back then, she’d reveled in going hungry, been proud of it, but she couldn’t _remember_ that feeling. The only good thing she could see now about hunger was how good it felt when you finally got to eat. 

She came out of her tube confused, in a different body than the one she thought she’d have. Her arms were like sticks, she had spindly little legs that looked like they’d break off if she kicked somebody, and she got tired just walking upstairs from the room they’d been lying in. She had to fix all that, as soon as they let her out of the bed and off the IV.

So that’s what she’s doing now. She eats and then she… okay, fine, call it training. It’s not like old man Nidai’s awake to be all smug about it. She trains. She started out pacing around the room after a meal, working up her stamina, and then she moved on to walking on the beach (because walking on sand wears you out more or something, she can’t remember the specifics) and then onto jogging. She can _run,_ now, not just a shuffling jog no faster than a walk, and man, it feels good. She does push-ups and crunches and she shinnies up palm trees and she swims in the ocean.

She remembers from before the simulation and before despair, back when she was in her third year of high school, there was a first-year she’d always spar with. And lose to, sure, but it was their way of being friends. The Ogre. She had a little buddy who hated for Akane to call her that, but the Ogre herself never seemed to mind. 

Funny, seeing that statue of her in the funhouse and not recognizing it then. Akane checks her own gradually thickening muscles in the mirror and remembers fighting her, stirs protein powder into her orange juice and wonders what ever happened to her. Was she in Junko’s class? She hopes not, because she knows what was supposed to happen to Junko’s class, but she’s also not totally sure she wants to check. 

It’s working, all of it. Even the protein powder may be helping. She’s building up muscle again, and running for longer each day. The others can hang around the tubes and wait for people to wake up, but she’s going to show old man Nidai what she’s made of when he finally shakes off the dust.


End file.
